Religion in American History: An Interview with Stephen Prothero

12 Historically Speaking May/June 2008 Religion in American History: An Interview with Stephen Prothero Conducted by RandallJ. Stephens STEPHEN PROTHERO 'S RELIGIOUS LITERACY: WHAT EVERY American Needs to Know—And Doesn't (HarperOne, 2007) callsfor renewedcommitment to religious education. A New York Times best seller, the book is aforceful critique of thegrowing ignorance of religion and religious history. U. S. citizens are markedly more religious than their secular European counterparts. Yet, unlike Europeans, Americans know very little aboutancientandmodern religions that have shapedtheEastandthe West. Chairof the departmentof religion atBoston University , Prothero has authored a number of other books and articles on American religious history. Assodate editorof Historically Speaking RandallStephens recently spoke with Prothero about his work and the state of thefield. Randall Stephens: How has the field of American religious history changed in the last few decades? Stephen Prothero: Ethnography has dominated religious history since the 1980s. Robert Orsi's The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950 (Yale University Press, 1985) had a major impact. Scholars started teaching that and Karen McCarthy Brown's Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn (University of California Press, 1991). Then Thomas Tweed wrote the influential Our Lady of the Exile: Diasporic Religion at a Cuban Catholic Shrine in Miami (Oxford University Press, 199T). About five years ago I looked at a number of syllabi for American religion courses, and I noticed a shift away from meta-narrative to ethnographic studies, which often have a historical component. Stephens: How then does Mark Noll's sprawling history, America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (Oxford University Press, 2002), fit into the field? Prothero: It doesn't fit. And one of the tilings that intrigues me is that evangelicals are more willing to do meta-narratives. I've wondered why. Is it because they live inside meta-narratives, or perhaps because they're not as tied into the fads of the profession? Stephens: Is there a sharp division in religious studies between those who rely heavily on theory and those who don't? Prothero: Those who do American religious history come at it either from the history profession or religious studies. The latter are trying to tell you something about religion in America, but they're also trying to tell you something about religion in general. And I think that's where theory comes in. If you look at the journal Religion in American Culture , the articles always include some theory. In other words, it's not enough to tell a story and provide an explanation. You have to make some broader connections, so that somebody who does Hinduism in India can read the article and diink, "Oh that's interesting, what they did with 20th-cenlllustration by Randall Stephens tury Pentecostalism." A religious historian from the history side, like Yale's Harry Stout, does not operate with the same set of questions and constraints. Historians seem classically allergic to theory. Stephens: Are there other concerns that shape how religious studies scholars work? Prothero: We don't really have a discipline like historians do, so we're always ripping things off from other people. Religious studies still has a lingering status anxiety problem. It has had to justify itself. That's less the case since 9/11. Obviously it's harder for administrators to ask the stupid question: Why should we study religion? I discuss this in my book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know—And Doesn't (HarperOne, 2007). Not long ago I spoke on the subject at the University of Florida. Religious studies students asked, "Why don't you do more with Judaism?" And my answer was, "Because it doesn't matter as much. It doesn't have the same influence that Christianity did and does." That was a historian's answer. I wrote more about Christianity in Religious Literacy because 85% of Americans are Christian, because all the presidents have been Christian, and because Christianity is the language of American politics. I think about die issue of content and emphasis in terms of the courses I teach. In my American religion class I talk about the various efforts to come up with a...